What size chefs knife should I buy?
As the other posters have said, it all depends on what feels the most comfortable in your hand, and in my opinion, it also depends on what you’ll be doing with the knife. When I cooked professionally, I always used a 10″ chef’s knife because I needed the extra leverage you get from the longer blade. Now that I only cook at home, I find the 7″ blade on our cheap santoku knife to be more than enough. So if you’re only cooking for yourself and a few friends/family, the 8″ blade may be fine. But if you plan to spend any significant time with a knife in your hand, then I recommend that you get the 10″ blade. As an aside, I will point out that how much you spend for a knife isn’t always an indicator of quality, and the vast majority of cooks, whether they are professionals or home cooks, don’t really need the super expensive $100+ knives. I’ve had a few very expensive knives in my life, and the one that lasted the longest, kept the best edge, and was just a general overall powerhouse was a <
Mr. saffry here, It’s all a matter of preference. Being a chef of 15 years who would love to get his hands on a Ken Onion knife, I myself prefer 8″ knives over the larger size. I find 10″ knives unwieldy and heavy for spending hours working with. But, that’s just me. There will be plenty of others, possibly including you, with the opposite preference. That being said, I’d recommend trying out some knives to get a feel for your own preference before making the significant investment that a Shun represents. I’ve read reviews of Shuns by people with larger hands who find them to be uncomfortable and even difficult to grip comfortably. Like I said, I’d love a Shun Ken Onion, but I’ve played with a lot of knives, know my own preferences for size and shape and think it would be a great fit for me. From what it sounds like in your post, I’d learn a little more with one or two of the many excellent mid-range knives like Wusthof before jumping right in at the expensive/elite end and possibly ge
We have the 8″ and the 10″ Wusthof plus a bunch of (excellent, hand-made) shorter direct-import Japanese knives. You use them for different tasks. If I only would get one knife, I always would buy the bigger one. Using a good big knife is absolutely not like trying to maneuver a huge car in a small town. You can chop half a teaspoon of ginger with your biggest knife. No problem. But – and that’s my point – you can reduce a cabbage head with it in no time too. You’ll need a laarge cutting board. Nthing the comment about high-end brands. You’ll need a knife that is made of reasonable steel and you’ll need to learn sharpening it with waterstones. Even the most horrendously priced knife doesn’t keep its edge forever, and I’ve seen some come from the shop with amazingly crude edges, too.
I use the larger santoku Ken Onion Shun for just about everything. I abandoned my chefs knife (a cutco) a long time ago. I took a knife handling class at Sur La Table and the chef who taught it let me try his various knives which is how I discovered Shun in the first place. That was very helpful. Everyone here agrees you just have to go try them out, but I will add that it is better to have one really good knife that you use all the time then to try to comprimies and save money. So if the 10″ feels right it is absolutely worth it. Think through what you will use it for. I primarily chop onions, peppers and fruits. Have you cooked anything in the last few months you couldn’t cut with an 8″ blade? Don’t optimize for the exceptions. Optimize for the daily use case.
